Part 1: Messi did not have the best goalscoring rate in two of the last four seasons.
Part 2: Defining elite goalscoring, and the top scorers of 2009-10.

This piece assumes you have read at least part 2, since that talks about the various acronyms used in this piece and explains why one would bother to normalize goalscoring data in the first place.

Today I will be posting all the top goalscoring stats from 2010-11 and talking a bit about the specific findings from that particular year. They are posted in sortable table format so that they are easy to swipe and re-use for your own research, should you be into that sort of thing. (I won't judge.)

Two More Driving Concepts
Yesterday I talked about why we strip out penalties and cut the data into 90 minute increments. Today I want to talk about two additional concepts that have an impact on player evaluation when looking at these stats.

First of all, when young players appear in these numbers, it's more meaningful than when older players are here.

For the purposes of forward play, "young" players equal 23 and Under, while peak is 24-26, and beyond that most players have a post-peak plateau and often a fairly steep decline. There are a lot of reasons for this, but most of it comes down to the age curve. I've written more on this topic here, but the quick and dirty of it is - on average - you can expect younger forwards to continue improving up to age 25-26, at which point their performance tends to peak, and then gradually fall off.

Thus, when you see young players deliver stats that are among the best goalscoring rates in Europe, it's exciting, because it means there is a reasonable chance they will get even better.

The second concept to keep in mind is a positional one. We expect central forwards to generally exhibit the highest goalscoring rate, and that's generally true across leagues. However, when wide players or attacking midfielders start showing up in this list, it is very interesting. Sometimes this is a systemic effect based on a unique tactical system, but a lot of times it will indicate unusual goalscoring potential from a position that doesn't always deliver those numbers. The modern game practically demands you have wide men who can score goals, so showing up here is a good thing, and doubly so when a player is young.

Right, on to the leagues!

EPL 2010-11
The Premier League this season had a long list of guys who were good or very good, topped by three players who were among the best in Europe that year in RVP, Berbatov, and 22-year-old Javier Hernandez (who is now 25, and really deserves a full-time starting role somewhere).

Note a young Andy Carroll is in this list, as are wide men Florent Malouda, and 21-year-old, always productive but oft-injured Theo Walcott.

Jermaine Beckford is also somehow on this list, which is probably the last point he was particularly useful for anyone as a goalscorer. He was already 27 then, which is another reason teams need to pay attention to age when doing transfer business.

Player	Season	Team	90Mins	G	NPG	G90	NPG90
Robin van Persie	2011	Arsenal	19.6444	18	16	0.9163	0.8145
Dimitar Berbatov	2011	Manchester United	24.5556	20	20	0.8145	0.8145
Javier Hernández	2011	Manchester United	16.5111	13		0.7873	0.7873
Steven Fletcher	2011	Wolverhampton Wanderers	15.5	10	9	0.6452	0.5806
Salomon Kalou	2011	Chelsea	17.3556	10		0.5762	0.5762
Andy Carroll	2011	Newcastle United	23	13		0.5652	0.5652
Jermaine Beckford	2011	Everton	14.6556	8		0.5459	0.5459
Carlos Tévez	2011	Manchester City	28.1333	20	15	0.7109	0.5332
Demba Ba	2011	West Ham	24.5778	13		0.5289	0.5289
Roman Pavlyuchenko	2011	Tottenham	17.6889	9		0.5088	0.5088
Sylvain Ebanks-Blake	2011	Wolverhampton Wanderers	14.5	7		0.4828	0.4828
Theo Walcott	2011	Arsenal	18.8444	9		0.4776	0.4776
Louis Saha	2011	Everton	15.2444	7		0.4592	0.4592
Edin Dzeko	2011	Manchester City	26.2667	12		0.4569	0.4569
DJ Campbell	2011	Blackpool	29.2	13		0.4452	0.4452
Maxi Rodríguez	2011	Liverpool	22.7	10		0.4405	0.4405
Peter Odemwingie	2011	West Bromwich Albion	29.8	15	13	0.5034	0.4362
Florent Malouda	2011	Chelsea	31.2222	13		0.4164	0.4164
Asamoah Gyan	2011	Sunderland	24.0222	10		0.4163	0.4163
Tim Cahill	2011	Everton	22.4	9		0.4018	0.4018
Darren Bent	2011	Sunderland	34.9889	17	14	0.4859	0.4001

LaLiga 2010-11
Man, La Liga this season was loaded. You have Ronaldo and Messi in the Top 5 in Europe, a ton of middle-tier guys posting outstanding rates, and the kids were ridiculous. Sergio Aguero is here, tearing up the league, Salomon Rondon (21, but moved to Rubin Kazan a year later), Pedro (wide+ young), Giuseppe Rossi (ACLs made of twine but still 23) are too, and ... Diego Costa, mostly in a secondary role.  

Also here are Benzoil, Gonzo, Soldado, Villa, Negrodo, Llorente, etc - also known as all the guys that either ended up playing at the big 2 in Spain or moving for mucho dinero overseas.

Oh, and uh... Pablo Osvaldo. Outside of one volley, he looks utterly useless since he moved to the Premier League. Alas, no model is foolproof.

Player		Team	90Mins	G	NPG	G90	NPG90
Cristiano Ronaldo	2011	Real Madrid	32.2333	40	32	1.241	0.9928
Lionel Messi	2011	Barcelona	31.7556	31	27	0.9762	0.8502
Karim Benzema	2011	Real Madrid	20.9556	15		0.7158	0.7158
Gonzalo Higuaín	2011	Real Madrid	14.6222	10		0.6839	0.6839
Sergio Agüero	2011	Atletico Madrid	29.7333	20	19	0.6726	0.639
Roberto Soldado	2011	Valencia	26.8444	18	17	0.6705	0.6333
Felipe Caicedo	2011	Levante	19.0556	13	12	0.6822	0.6297
David Villa	2011	Barcelona	30.7667	18		0.585	0.585
Christian Stuani	2011	Levante	14.0444	8		0.5696	0.5696
Pablo Osvaldo	2011	Espanyol	19.4222	13	11	0.6693	0.5664
Álvaro Negredo	2011	Sevilla	29.1	20	16	0.6873	0.5498
Pedro	2011	Barcelona	23.8333	13		0.5455	0.5455
Salomón Rondón	2011	Malaga	26.9111	14		0.5202	0.5202
Fernando Llorente	2011	Athletic Bilbao	35.2444	18		0.5107	0.5107
Aritz Aduriz	2011	Valencia	20.5889	10		0.4857	0.4857
Luís Fabiano	2011	Sevilla	15.4444	10	7	0.6475	0.4532
Frederic Kanouté	2011	Sevilla	21.0111	12	9	0.5711	0.4283
Nilmar	2011	Villarreal	26.3111	11		0.4181	0.4181
Giuseppe Rossi	2011	Villarreal	33.6444	18	14	0.535	0.4161
Diego Costa	2011	Atletico Madrid	14.7222	6		0.4075	0.4075

Bundesliga 2010-11
Aaaand here I lose my football hipster badge because I have no clue who Novakovic, Allagui, or Lakic are. Sorry.

This was the year that the Gomez Button lead Europe in NPG90, and saw Kiessling doing his, "Even Jogi Lowe doesn't know who I am, but I'm always near the top of the league in goals but never get called up to the German National Team" thing. Someone will write a play about this eventually, featuring turtlenecks, Nietzsche, and a lot of drawn out sighs. I figure this is Joey Barton's second career after he hangs up the boots.

You also have a bunch of guys in the middle tier that would become very interesting names shortly thereafter. Lewandowski is 22 there. Schurrle is 20-21 and probably played wide a lot, plus you also have young Kagawa (midfielder bonus points), and Mario Mandzukic.

On the other hand, you have Papiss Cisse (what a great first six months at Newcastle! *ignores the rest of his Tyneside career*), Lucas Barrios, Mladen Petric (sorry Fulham, he was too old when you got him), and the aforementioned I-have-no-fucking-clue-who-they-are guys.

Player		Team	90Mins	G	NPG	G90	NPG90
Mario Gomez	2011	Bayern Munich	27.1667	28	27	1.0307	0.9939
Milivoje Novakovic	2011	FC Cologne	23.1556	17		0.7342	0.7342
Sami Allagui	2011	Mainz 05	16.4222	10		0.6089	0.6089
Lucas Barrios	2011	Borussia Dortmund	27.5333	16		0.5811	0.5811
Papiss Demba Cissé	2011	Freiburg	31.1556	22	18	0.7061	0.5777
Srdjan Lakic	2011	Kaiserslautern	29.1111	16		0.5496	0.5496
Shinji Kagawa	2011	Borussia Dortmund	15.2	8		0.5263	0.5263
Mladen Petric	2011	Hamburger SV	19.2333	11	10	0.5719	0.5199
Mario Mandzukic	2011	Wolfsburg	16.2111	8		0.4935	0.4935
Stefan Kießling	2011	Bayer Leverkusen	14.9222	7		0.4691	0.4691
Claudio Pizarro	2011	Werder Bremen	19.5667	9		0.46	0.46
Robert Lewandowski	2011	Borussia Dortmund	17.6222	8		0.454	0.454
Andre Schürrle	2011	Mainz 05	26.5556	15	12	0.5649	0.4519
Didier Ya Konan	2011	Hannover 96	27.3222	14	12	0.5124	0.4392
Grafite	2011	Wolfsburg	20.5556	9		0.4378	0.4378
Pavel Pogrebnyak	2011	VfB Stuttgart	18.4222	8		0.4343	0.4343
Martin Harnik	2011	VfB Stuttgart	20.7667	9		0.4334	0.4334
Mohammed Abdellaoue	2011	Hannover 96	23.3222	10		0.4288	0.4288

SerieA 2010-11
I mentioned on Twitter that there were reasons why Arsenal fans might be interested in the rumored Pato move. As a kid, he was unreal. As an adult, there are questions about his ability to stay healthy and his current motivation. Those scoring numbers though... woof.

Also in the mix here are the eternally underrated Di Natale, 23-year-old Edinson Cavani, young Alessio Cerci (currently having a great season for Torino), young Alexis Sanchez (tearing it up for Barcelona), and a bunch of Italian stalwarts that are good but rarely great.

Player		Team	90Mins	G	NPG	G90	NPG90
Alexandre Pato	2011	AC Milan	17.7444	14		0.789	0.789
Antonio Di Natale	2011	Udinese	32.6556	28	23	0.8574	0.7043
Edinson Cavani	2011	Napoli	32.2444	26	21	0.8063	0.6513
Fabio Quagliarella	2011	Juventus	14.5667	9		0.6178	0.6178
Alessandro Matri	2011	Cagliari	32.6667	20	19	0.6122	0.5816
Robinho	2011	AC Milan	25.8667	14		0.5412	0.5412
Antonio Floro Flores	2011	Udinese	24.7	13		0.5263	0.5263
Samuel Eto"o	2011	Inter	32.9222	21	16	0.6379	0.486
Giampaolo Pazzini	2011	Sampdoria	31.3556	17	15	0.5422	0.4784
Marco Di Vaio	2011	Bologna	37.9333	19	18	0.5009	0.4745
Alessio Cerci	2011	Fiorentina	15.2778	7		0.4582	0.4582
Alexis Sánchez	2011	Udinese	26.5556	12		0.4519	0.4519
Amauri	2011	Juventus	15.6444	7		0.4474	0.4474
Mirko Vucinic	2011	Roma	20.7222	10	9	0.4826	0.4343

French 2010-11
Moussa Sow, Lisandro Lopez, and Loic Remy are the pick of the crop from France that season. Sow has maintained the same goalscoring rate since moving to Turkey, Remy has proven himself plenty capable of scoring in the Premier League, and Lopez was at his peak then, had two more good years for Lyon, and now presumably plays on a fat contract in the Middle East.

Also of interest here were 23-year-old Gervinho (he really was great at Lille), and 23-year-old Dimitri Payet (midfielder bonus points), who had an amazing year last season and then has underwhelmed a bit this year since a big move to Marseille.

Player		Team	90Mins	G	NPG	G90	NPG90
Moussa Sow	2011	Lille	31.2556	25	24	0.7999	0.7679
Lisandro López	2011	Lyon	23.1889	17	15	0.7331	0.6469
Loïc Remy	2011	Nice	25.9667	16		0.6162	0.6162
Kevin Gameiro	2011	Lorient	35.8111	22	20	0.6143	0.5585
Grégory Pujol	2011	Valenciennes	32.0778	17		0.53	0.53
Ideye Brown	2011	Sochaux	31.2333	15		0.4803	0.4803
Gervinho	2011	Lille	31.6778	15		0.4735	0.4735
Modibo Maiga	2011	Sochaux	33.7778	15		0.4441	0.4441
Youssef El-Arabi	2011	Caen	36.3111	17	16	0.4682	0.4406
Dimitri Payet	2011	Saint Etienne	28.0556	13	12	0.4634	0.4277